Spike retaining device



Jan. 15, 1952 L. Q. MOORE SPIKE. RETAINING DEVICE Filed Dec. 28, 1948WVENTOR L00 Qu/A/ M0025, By (2&4 1.

Fig.3

ATTORNEY Patented Jan. 15, 1.952

UNITED STATES PATENT orrics SPIKE RETAINING DEVICE Lou Quin Moore,Pueblo, c010. A pumuon December 28, 1948, Serial No. 67,635

The present invention relates to spike retaining devices andparticularly to spike locking devices designed to hold railroad railspikes securely in place against forces which might tend to loosen ordisplace them.

As is well known in the art, railroad rails and the like are commonlymounted on transverse supports, usually in the form of wooden crossties,to which such rails are usually fastened securely by means of heavy ironor steel spikes driven into the wood. Many efforts have been made toreplace these wooden cross-ties with other devices and materials whichare more weather resistant but without much success. Wooden cross-ties,in their'untreated state or treated with chemical preservatives, stillremain the chief means of mounting railroad rails on railway road bedsand the problem of securely fastening the rails to the ties remains animportant one, notwithstanding numerous and varied efiorts that havebeen made in the past to insure against rails loosening from the ties.The safety of railroads depends in a large measure upon the securitywith which the rails are held in place on the road bed.

When conventional railroad spikes are driven into wooden cross-ties, thenatural resilience and friction of the wood usually are relied upon tohold them and, in turn, to hold the rails in place. Such devices asthreaded screws, bolts, anchored driven devices of complex structure andthe like have been suggested as substitutes for the simple standardspikes. These, however, have usually been unsuccessful because they aretoo costly or the labor of installing them is prohibitive in cost.Locking and anchoring devices for standard and modified spikes have alsobeen proposed but have not generally been adopted because they areeither too costly, or the labor of installing them is too expensive, orthey require modification of i standard equipment such as rails, ties,tie plates and spikes or spike substitutes, all of which isobjectionable and frequently quite impracticable.

Under favorable conditions, the woods of which cross-ties are made mayholdthe spikes for a time without the use of any auxiliary deviceswhatever. If the grain of the wood is tough and it has an optimumcontent of natural or synthetic gum, resin or other material which givesit a high coefficient of friction, the. ordinary driven spike may beretained adequately for a long time; Such woods, however, are notusually available and severe conditions of track vibration, or ofweathering, repeated and extreme cycles of temperature change, moistureconditions, freezing and thawing, and the like may result inloosening ofspikes in the best of woods. When the wood of the tie is weak transverseto the grain, i. e., readily subject to splitting, or the grain is badlybroken by the driven spike as hap- 4 Claims. (Cl. 238-375) r resilientmaterial and designed so that pens with many woods, the spike is notstrongly held and may easily be loosened. Under such conditions it isfrequently desirable, if not absolutely necessary, to employ someauxiliary means to prevent the loosening of the spike and it is best toapply the remedy before the spike becomes loose in the slightest degree.An object of the present invention is to provide such a remedy.

Obviously, a successful spike lock or retaining means must be relativelyvery inexpensive since spikes are used in very large numbers, frequentlytwo or three or more to every foot of rail. It must be easily installed,preferably by unskilled laborers using ordinary conventional tools, andshould be fairly well retained so as not to be subject unduly tounauthorized tampering. To be efiective, such a device should bedesigned to apply a constant pressure or force upon the spike which willoppose and overcome any and all forces which may tend to lift or loosenthe spike.

The present invention has as an object the attainment of the aboverequirements and is based upon the discovery that such may be attainedby the use of a simple device constructed of strong in its in stalledposition it is constantly under longitudinal compression forces anddeformation within its elastic limits. It is a further object of thisinvention to so design a spike retainer or locking device that it maybefirmly installed in locking position by simple operations and may beretained securely in such position against inadvertent displacement orremoval by unauthorized agencies.

Other objects will become manifest as this description'proceeds andtherefore reference will next be had to the drawings accompanying thisspecification in which:

Fig. 1 is a fragmentary front View showing a short section of railroadrail and its mountings, illustrating an initial step in the applicationof a spike retaining device thereto according to this invention;

Fig. 2 is a view similar to Fig. 1, showing the retaining device of thisinvention in its final looking position;

Fig. 3 is a vertical sectional view taken transversely to thelongitudinal axis of the rail, substantially along the line 3-3 of Fig.2, showing an edge view of the spike locking device of the presentinvention; and I Fig. 4 is aperspective View of the spike locking deviceper se.

Referring first to Figs. 1 and 2, there is shown ventional tie plate 2|which has a plane or substantially plane lower surface 23, a raised ribor thrust flange 25 on the upper surface to resist lateral thrust of therail, and a substantially plane upper surface area 21 upon which theflange or base l3 of the rail rests firmly; The tie plate 2| is providedwith holes of rectangular shape and a size to fit rather closely aroundstandard railroad spikes, as shown at 29. The number of holes may vary,depending upon the area of the tie plate and the use to which it is put.Usually each tie plate has 4 orv 6 holes for spikes, only one hole 29being shown in the drawings.

The tie plate 2| is not always used and may be omitted in someinstallations. As shown herein, it is mounted upon a woodentie 30, shownonly fragmentarily but offionventional shape, size and material,

The rail, and the tie plate upon which vit rests, are securely fastened.to the cross-tie 38 by means of standard spikes 3|, of which only one isshown. The spike, as, is well known, has a rectangular body portion 32';most of which is driven into the wooden tie, and; it has a flanged orenlarged head portion 33. designed to overlap the edge portion of. railflange l3 and hold the rail in place. Thesspike 3| has a sharpened orwedge-shaped point to facil ta driving it the tie and is usually drivenvwith the wedge or chisel-shaped end transverse to the grain of the woodsothat it cutsand bends downwardly the longitudinal wood fibers. which,in theory at least, grip the spike with a downward thrust to resistother forces which might tend to pull the spike 3| upwardly.

Various forces such as the uncut fibers of wood around the point 3110fspike 3|, water which may penetrate thewood and be subjected to freezingand thawing and, most of all, vibration of the rail and, other trackelements as trains roll along it, tend, to force the spike 3| upwardly.To overcome this tendency, the spike lock element itself, shown at 4|,is formed of suitable material having; at least a fair quality ofresiliency so that it may be placed, under a permanent stresswithoutpermanent deformation. A ferrous metalflis preferred, for reasonsof economy andrigidity, a mild steel being par ticularly preferredbecause of its resiliency although, iron is usually suitable. element 4!is formed of a strip of steel having adequate width and thickness togive it substantial rigidity. Preferably the element 4| is formed ofmaterial which is somewhat wider than the head of spike 3| and ofsufiicient thickness,

that it cannot be materially bent or deformed by hand.

The element 4| is bent into a rough: S shape, as shown in the drawings,and the lower end. is

curved rather sharply near the end; The lower end also is bifurcated, acentral portion being ginning from the lower'end of element 4|, archesup over the head 33.

The second part of thereverse curve which gives the element 4| its roughS shape, indicated at 49, is solocated. that. its apex lies ,on top ofAs. shown, the e the spike head 33 when the lock element 4| is inlocking position (Figs. 2, 3). From the bend 49 to its upper end, asviewed in the drawings, the element 4| is fairly straight but preferablyhas a slight camberas shown in the dotted lines in Fig.3, so that it maybe forced into position between the head of spike 3| and the juncture ofrail web l and rail ball I! by assuming a somewhat greater degree ofcurvature as indicated in the full lines of Fig. 3. It is important thatthe dimensions of element 4|, and particularly the lengthof section 5|thereof, between the curved portion 49'which rests on the head of thespike and the upper end which abuts against the rail, be such thatconsiderable pressure is applied to the spike head. At the same time,lt'is important that the-length of section 5| and the degree ofcamber orcurvature to which it is subjected both be such that this section isunder longitudinal compression but is not cambered or bent beyond itselastic limit. Inthis way a force of considerable magnitude may beapplied continuously to the head of the spike to resist its workingupward as time goes on.

The upper end 55 of lock element 4| is pref-,- erably substantiallystraight and square or perpendicular to the general longitudinal axis ofsection 5| thereof. However, asindicated at 51, it is desirable to cutoff one corner by beveling or rounding it to some extent so thatdrivingthe element 4| into lockingposition, thatis from the position ofFig. l to-that of Fig. 2 may be facilitated. The degree to which thecorner should be cut away as at 51 may be varied somewhatbut should beenough that the corner 5'! will not gouge into the rail but not so muchas to render it easy to remove. the locking element after it is onceinstalled. In some variations it may be desirable to round or bevel bothupper corners but this is not preferred as a rule. beveled portion 51 ispreferably at the upper left corner, as viewed in Figs. 1, 2 and 4, forconvenience of installation by a right handed workman driving theelement. into locking position with a hammer or otherappropriatedrivinginstrument.

Ordinarily it is not necessary to provide a special camber or curvaturein section 5| since the formation of the curve at 49' usually results ina slight residual camber. It may be specially curved, if desired, andthe curvature or camber may be such that the section 5| (Fig. 3) willflex downwardly rather than upwardly when the device is forced intolocking position. The up ward curvaturahowever, appears more desirablesince the force applied to the spike head approaches more nearly to thevertical withsuch curvature.

Itwill be understood that the locking element may bemade in varioussizesfor use. with rails of varying sizes and types. It may be applied byplacing the bifurcated lower end astride the inward part of the spikehead with the upper end 55 against the juncture of the rail weband-ball, whereupon it may be forced into final locking position (Fig.2) by. strikingor pressing against the upper sideedge portion Edwith ahammer orother tool until the lock assumes the final position of Fig. 2with its square upper end 55 firmly engaged in the recessed junctureofweb and ball. In such position the element Mapplies continuous. pressureon the spike head and even when the rail is subj cted toheavy.vibrations 3 pass ingtrains this, pressure is not interrupted since thebends 41, 49 if portion 5| is perfectly straight, within its elasticlimits and hence without permanent deformation.

Modifications and variations will suggest themselves to those skilled inthe art and such are intended to be covered, as far as the prior art mayproperly permit, by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. In a spiked rail assembly which includes a standard railroad railhaving a base flange, a vertical web, and a ball, secured to asupporting base by a driven headed spike, the improvement which consistsof a spiize retaining device comprising an elongated flat, relativelythin bar of resilient metal bent out of its main plane into a reverselycurved pattern of roughly S shape, said device comprising a lowerportion having bifurcate portions projecting outwardly away from therail body and. adapted to embrace the inner and railward edge portionsof the head of a driven railroad spike, an intermediate part of saiddevice being bent outwardly from said rail and over said lower portionto engage the upper surface of the head of said spike, and the upperpart of said device being bent inwardly from said intermediate parttoward said rail and being dimensioned to abut under compression againstsaid rail below the ball thereof to apply a sustained resilient forcebetween said rail and said spike head.

2. A device according to claim 1 wherein the upper portion is cut awayslightly at one extreme corner portion to facilitate its installationinto spike retaining position by forcing said upper portionlongitudinally of said rail.

3. A spike retaining device of flat resilient metal strap bent into amodified S shape and comprising a lower outwardly directed portionhaving a bifurcated end for engaging the head of a spike, anintermediate part in continuation of said lower part and bent outwardlythereover to overlie and engage the top part of a spike head located insaid bifurcation, and an upper part continuing from said intermediatepart and reversely bent inwardly and upwardly so as to extendsubstantially in the reverse direction from said lower portion.

4. A spike lock of the character described, comprising a unitary strutmember of resilient strap metal having a substantially flat bifurcatedlower end directed outwardly and away from the upper portion of saidmember and adapted to engage vertical edge portions of the head of adriven spike nearest the body of a railroad rail secured by said spike,said member having a reversely curved intermediate portion incontinuation of said bifurcate portion and bent outwardly thereover tooverlie and contact the head of said spike, said lock member having alsoan extended upper strut portion in continuation of said intermediateportion, the extreme end of said strut portion being adapted to engagesaid rail substantially at the juncture of the ball and the web of suchrail when said member is under longitudinal compression, to apply aconstant pressure to the head of said spike, thereby urging said spikein the general direction of driving.

LOU QUIN MOORE.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 821,841 Tower May 29, 1906941,621 Crippen Nov. 30, 1909 1,009,568 Powell Nov. 21, 1911

